The development of the Roman law in the Imperial period was little affected by direct legislation. New laws were made by Senatus Con suite, and subsequently by the Conatitutiooes Principum ; but that which gives to this period its striking characteristic is the effect pro duccd by the Response and the writings of the Roman jurists.
So long as the law of religion or the Jus Pontificium was blended with the Jus Civilc, and the knowledge of both was confined to tho patricians, jurisprudence was not a profession. But with the gradual separation of the Just Civile and Pontificium, which was partly owing to the political changes by which the estate of the plebeians was put on a level with that of the patricians, there arose a class of persons who are designated as Jurisperiti, Jurisconsulti, Prudentes, and by other equivalent names. Of these jurisconsulti the earliest on record is Tiberius Coruncanius, a plebeian pouffes maximus, and consul B.C.
2S1: he is said to have been the first who professed to expound the law to any person who wanted his assistance (publice profiteri); he left no writings, but many of his Response were recorded. Tiberius Coruncanius had a long series of successors who cultivated the law, and whose response and writings were acknowledged and received as a part of the Jus Civile. The opinions of the jurisconsulti, whether given upon questions referred to them at their own houses, or with reference to matters in litigation, were accepted as the safest rule by which a judex or an arbiter could be guided. Accordingly, the mode of proceeding, as it is described by Pomponius, Is perfectly simple; the judices in difficult cases took the opinion of the jurisconsulti, who gave it either orally or in writing. Augustus, it is said, gave the response of the jmiats a different character. Before his time, their response, as such, could have no binding force, and they only indirectly obtained the character of law by being adopted by those who were empowered to pronounce a sentence. Augustus gave to certain jurists the respondendi jus, and declared that they should give their responsa ex ejus auctoritate." In the time of Gaius (i., 7) the Response Pru dentium had become a recognised source of law; but he observes that the response of those only were to be so considered who had received permission to mike law (jura condere); and ho adds that if they all agreed, their opinion was to be considered as law ; if they disagreed, the juilex might follow which opinion he pleesesl. Tho matter is thus
left in some obscurity, and, for want of more precise information, we can only conjecture what was the precise way in which these licensed jurist, under the empire were empowered to declare the law. It is however claim, both from the nature of the CAM and the statement of Gains, that their functions were limited to exposition, or to the decla ration of what was law in a given case, and that they had no power to make new rules of law as such ; further, the licensed jurists must have formed a body or college, for otherwise it is not possible to conceive how the opinions of the majority could be ascertained on any given occasion.
The conunencement of a more systematic exposition of law under the empire is indicated by the fact of the existence of two distinct sects or schools (echolm) of jurists. These schools originated under Augustus, and the heads of each were respectively two distinguished jurists, Antisteus Labeo and Ateius Capito. But the schools took their names from other jurists. The followers of Capito's school, called Sabiniani, derived their name from Massurius Sabinus, a pupil of Capito, who lived under Tiberius and as late as the time of Nero : sometimes they were called Cassiani, from C. Cassius Longinus, another distinguished pupil of Capito. The other school was called Proculiani, from Proculue, a follower of Labeo. If we may take the authority of Pomponiva, the characteristic difference of the two schools was this: Capito adhered to what was transmitted,—that is, he looked out for positive rules sanctioned by time ; Labeo had more learning and a greater variety of knowledge, and accordingly he was ready to make innovations, for he had kora confidence in himself; in other words, he was a philosophical more than an historical jurist. Gains, who was himself a Sabinian, often refers to discrepancy of opinion between the two schools ; but it is not easy to collect from the instances which he mentions what ought to be considered as their characteristic differences.